One of the most significant elements in the history of
UFOlogy was the so-called Condon Project, centered at the
University of Colorado in 1967-1968. This paper discusses the
origin, methodological philosophy and overview of the research
problem, the activities, results, and external impacts of this
work. The paper finds a complex mix of personalities, attitudes,
and theories enmeshed in political and social forces, which
predestined the project's conclusions and crippled its
ability to make any scientific contribution toward the solution
of the UFO mystery. Its resultant impacts were nevertheless
formidable, both negatively and positively.

THE ORIGINS OF THE COLORADO PROJECT

When telling a story one is told to begin at the beginning,
but, time and life being continuous rivers stretching back into
the past, where does one really begin? Although starting with the
Big Bang and working forward to 1966 might be scientifically most
defensible, perhaps beginning with one of my favorite people, J.
Allen Hynek, would be preferable. Dr. Hynek, in his famous role
as Project Bluebook scientific advisor, had been around the idea
of transferring responsibility for UFO research to academia (or
some more dedicated non-military research institutions for over a
decade. General Thomas D. White, USAF chief of staff, had
suggested as early as 1955 that Air Force Intelligence turn over
the UFO problem to an outside contractor, such as Battelle or
Rand (Watson, 1955). Hynek, and the military personnel at
Bluebook, had in the interim toyed with the idea of enlisting
NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Brookings
Institution for aid. In the summer of 1965, the Pentagon asked
Hynek for his views on involving the National Academy of
Sciences. Hynek replied in August of 1965 (Hynek, 1965).
Hynek's letter to Colonel John Spaulding agreed that NAS
involvement would strengthen the potential for solving both the
scientific and the sociological problems, which the Air Force
currently faced. And, the structure, a working panel of committed
experts, should include both physical and social scientists, and
involve itself over a several month period.

Hynek's views, of course, were not acted upon with any
immediacy, but they added to the Pentagon's rolling pot of
opinions about how to get rid of the UFO problem. The next major
step toward the Colorado Project grew out of this stew when a
select committee of the Air Force's Scientific Advisory Board
met to consider the issue in February of 1966. This was the
"O'Brien Committee". The group met for one day,
"considered" the information (if such a
characterization can be allowed for such a brief affair), and
recommended a strengthening of the UFO investigative program. The
major strengthening was to be accomplished by contracting a
central university (with several allied universities to supply
investigative teams) to coordinate in-depth research on about one
hundred sightings per year and to be in immediate touch and
cooperation with Project Bluebook. The project should be as
public in its research as possible, and present its results
regularly to interested congressmen (Steiner, 1966). This
committee report was released in February of 1966.

Coincident with the release there arrived (mainly in Michigan)
one of the biggest UFO flaps in history. The flap energized the
UFO community (especially NICAP and James McDonald), but more
importantly for our story, it pushed the decision on a university
study over the threshold. And Allen Hynek played a primary, and
unwanted, role. Hynek's characterization of the
Dexter-Hillsdale sightings as "swamp gas" unleashed a
howl of anger, protest, ridicule, and raw publicity across the
whole globe. Congressmen became so put-off by the apparent USAF
irresponsibility that they put heat on the Pentagon to explain
how this could be going on. Gerald Ford essentially demanded an
apology to his constituents. The level of grief doled out to
Allen Hynek finally and inexorably pushed him over his threshold
of loyal hyperconservatism as well. Hynek, in a different style,
initiated his own "coming out party" at the same time
as the more aggressive, flamboyant McDonald. Within the House
Armed Services Committee, he, Air Force Secretary Harold Brown,
and Bluebook chief Hector Quintanilla were called to testify
within a week of the swamp gas furor. Hynek strongly supported
the O'Brien Committee recommendations for a university study,
and the committee report was attached to the congressional
hearings.

In May the Air Force announced that it would begin looking for
the recommended universities. Jim McDonald began lobbying for his
own participation, and, in his usual over-enthusiasm, succeeded
instead in convincing persons like Brian O'Brien
not to consider him (or his university presumably).
Allen Hynek wrote Secretary Brown supporting his decision to
place this in the hands of civilian scientists and out of the
military. Little progress was made in getting a topflight
scientist to take on the task, however. Through the month of June
the Air Force had no expressions of interest. In July the A'
Force changed "salesmen" and tried again. At the very
end of the month, Colonel Thomas Ratchford of the Office of
Scientific Research appealed to Dr. Edward Condon, and a quality
that he had displayed continually throughout his distinguished
career, patriotic loyalty, and gained his agreement, if the
university administration, faculty, and allied institutions would
give their support.

EDWARD UHLER CONDON

Dr. Condon was a very prominent scientist, and very much the
governmental and security insider. He played a major role in the
development of nuclear weapons in WWII, and became the director
of the National Bureau of Standards, where he resided at the
start of the UFO phenomenon in 1947. In that

capacity he was also a member of the executive committee of
the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which
became NASA. He was president of the American Physical Society,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the
American Physics Teachers Association. He was elected to the
prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and was a member of
Washington's elite Cosmos Club. Despite a bout of insane
persecution by the McCarthyist House Committee on Un-American
Activities, he never lost the confidence of anyone that mattered
either in science or in the military. After retiring from the
NBS, he bounced around briefly, landing in Colorado at a joint
facility funded by the University and the NBS. There, he had
settled in as a patriarch of physical science whose activities
were more organizational and service-oriented than basic
research. His reputation was made. His personal and
organizational relations were strong. He had little to risk even
in a potentially risky business. Here, he had encountered an
administrator who admired him as an American scientific legend:
Robert Low.

THE PROJECT'S PERSONNEL AND STRUCTURE

It is a tribute to the chaos and tribulations of the Project
that one cannot set down a straightforward and meaningful listing
of the working staff. The original Air Force contract listed
seven names: Condon, Colorado Administrator Robert Low,
psychologists William Scott, David Saunders, and Michael
Wertheimer, plus chairman of psychology Stuart Cook, and
atmospheric physicist Franklin Roach. Low would serve as
"project coordinator", essentially being Condon's
arms, legs, and most of his brains on the running of all phases
of the affair. Edward Condon would, as much as possible, make
heavy executive decisions and otherwise "play" in the
project only as much as he liked. Of these seven named
researchers two were virtual immediate drop-outs: Scott and Cook.
They cannot in any meaningful way be considered contributing
personnel (Brittin et al, 1966).

Many other persons figured in the mix. Some flashed on the
scene and were gone. Some were distant contractors working in
isolation. Others were intimately involved. Of the latter, there
are seven names for whom anyone would grant a significant
on-the-ground project involvement with UFO cases and
investigation: chemist Roy Craig, electrical engineer Norman
Levine, astrophysicist William Hartmann, physicist Frederick
Ayer, administrative assistant and preliminary case screener Mary
Lou Armstrong, and grad students Dan Culberson and James
Wadsworth. Many others were involved. Of these, the ones who
contributed significantly in either counseling the project and
interacting with it on-site, or in doing field investigations,
were plasma physicist Martin Altschuler, radar analyst Gordon
Thayer, physicist Gerald Rothberg, and auto engineer Frederick
Hooven. These individuals are distinguished from a tribe of
others by having some more-than-fleeting direct involvement with
project investigations and personnel.

Because of the social conflicts and alleged incompetent
leadership of the project, the list of contributors was unstable,
and the second half of the project became a disorganized scramble
to create a final document from "what was left", but
the following is my best estimate of a proper naming of the
research staff:

Primary team:

Edward Condon, physicist, Colorado

Robert Low, administrator, Colorado

Franklin Roach, physicist-astronomer, Environmental

Science Services Administration

David Saunders, psychologist, Colorado

Michael Wertheimer, psychologist, Colorado

Roy Craig, chemist, Colorado

Norman Levine, electrical engineer, Arizona

Mary Lou Armstrong, administrative assistant, Colorado

William Hartmann, astronomer, Arizona

Frederick Ayer, physicist, Colorado

Dan Culberson, psychologist, Colorado

James Wadsworth, psychologist, Colorado

Secondary contributors:

Martin Altschuler, Astrophysics, NCAR

Gordon Thayer, physicist, ESSA

Gerald Rothberg, physicist, Stevens Tech

Frederick Hooven, engineer, Ford Motor Company

All these individuals (and others) worked hard enough to earn
their "letters" on the team, but, in the judgment of
this author, the hardest workers (for good or ill) were Low,
Craig and Wadsworth. Saunders and Hartmann deserve honorable
mention. It is interesting to note that a graduate student
(Wadsworth) played such a major role in the case
investigations.

The organizational structure of the project was, frankly, a
mess. It took several months for them to even attempt to decide
on an organizational structure. Major debates occurred regarding
what they were supposed to be doing. Each primary academic had a
different (and strong) opinion about how to do the research. The
rough concept of Colorado as a central coordinating research
focusser allied to investigating teams dispersed in other schools
around the country fell apart almost immediately. Colorado would
have to do basically what was done itself, and contract out
specific bits of academic research studies elsewhere (studies, by
the way, with no necessary connection to the more mysterious core
of UFO reports). The Air Force was supposed to be completely
cooperative in notifying the project of new cases, providing
on-site help if there was an air base involved, and generally
digging out older cases and other inside information. They were
only marginally cooperative on all but the provision of old
Project Bluebook data. There was also to be a hotline where Air
Force, pilot, press et al could reach the Project with new
sightings. With the short time span for organization, this too
was only marginally effective. Different members of the
"team" (it is a bit absurd to call it that) took on
tasks to which they were drawn, or, which they essentially
insisted on doing. Many things were planned and very few
completed. It is a miracle of last-minute creativity that the
final report achieved any semblance of organized research at all.
This is merely to state a fact, not to blame. It was ridiculous
to think that a two year project (including the writing time)
could start from total ground zero on a topic like UFOs and

even get going smoothly by the time the grant ran out. Still,
it could have proceeded with a lot better direction than it
had.

METHODOLOGY

And here was the rub. The Colorado Project was an unusual
scientific research grant in that it was almost forced upon a
scientist who knew little about the research problem, rather than
empowering a scientist who knew all about what he wanted to do.
Robert Low, of course, was in no better position to figure out
what to do. There were apparent scientific experts available who
could have helped them immensely, but there were problems. Allen
Hynek, still employed by the USAF, was tainted by that
connection, and was, in fact, ordered not to get
too close to the Project. The only other two obvious candidates,
James McDonald and Donald Menzel, were in such intellectually and
emotionally polarized positions that the Air Force could not risk
involving them either. The civilian experts, NICAP and APRO, were
even less acceptable in an academic testing ground. So the naive
eggheads had to blunder forward on their own, albeit receiving
lots of "advice" from all sides.

One member of the Colorado team, who in most ways contributed
little to the research, at the beginning of the thinking period
produced a concept which had a powerful effect on all the
deliberations. Michael Wertheimer was a psychologist and
interested in perception. He used his interests, and
philosophical reasoning, to verbalize what became known as the
"Wertheimer Hypothesis". It has two components: one
psychological, one epistemological.

The psychological problem: In analyzing a UFO
report one is usually interested in the initial stimulus, which
precipitated the report. This agent is called the "distal
stimulus". This event sends wavelengths (light, sound)
through the environment, which is often able to distort those
signals. When they finally land on the eye or the eardrum, they
are labeled the "proximal stimulus". Are these two
stimuli identical (or better, is one a faithful messenger of the
other)? The sense preceptors turn the proximal stimulus into
neural impulses with more or less accuracy depending on chronic
or temporary factors within the individual's central nervous
system. Upon reaching the cortex, these impulses must be
accurately perceived (sort of gelled into a proper relation to
themselves) and then cognition (knowing) must take place (they
are placed into a proper relation to what's already known or
believed). At every stage there is some risk of distortion. Once
the reporter reports to the UFO researcher, that researcher must
not automatically take the report as an accurate representation
of the distal stimulus, which initiated it.

Wertheimer's point here, beyond the obvious, was that
there has been little in the way of testing "everyday
folk" under observation circumstances anything like those
involved with UFO reports. Therefore there is no data baseline
against which to judge how much distortion is likely to occur in
raw reports. UFO researchers like McDonald and Menzel obviously
were operating on very different assumptions
regarding this matter.

The epistemological problem: The UFO research
scientist receives a large pile of such reports with various
degrees of puzzling elements and unknown degrees of distortion.
He goes into these

honestly and with great skill and energy. If he is
intellectually honest, there will never be the day when he can
claim to have simply, unambiguously solved all the reports. He
will be faced with piles labeled "IFOs",
"insufficient evidence", and "UFOs". Let us
assume that he has been paid a lot of money to test the
hypothesis: some UFO reports refer to extraterrestrial
spacecraft. The fact that there exists, still, a pile called
"UFOS" (actually for strict philosophy's sake, even
the "insufficient" pile will do) indicates that the
scientist cannot prove that no UFO reports refer
to ET craft. However, the converse is also true. Barring
something truly astounding in the evidence, the existence of the
"UFO" pile cannot prove that the pile or any of its
members relates to extraterrestrials either. All it says is that
the reports remain a mystery. Wertheimer suggested the word
"framasands" to categorize these cases, simply to
emphasize that we could not say what they were.

Anyone is free to disregard such logic and decide to go with
their own intuitions and "common sense", of course, but
philosophically, and even in most ways, scientifically, the
argument is pretty tight (especially given the psychological,
stimuli-distorting precautions of the Wertheimer preface). The
argument staggered Condon. He wondered whether there was any way
to fruitfully proceed on the problem. It angered the USAF
representative, Colonel Robert Hippler, who wanted to argue that
you could, within reason, disprove the
Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. It nettled David Saunders, an
ETH-sympath, for the opposite reason. This was presented as the
lead-off idea to a briefing of USAF officials (Ratchford,
Hippler, Quintanilla, and others) in January of 1967. A debate on
methodology naturally ensued (UFO Study Project, 1967).

This briefing laid down the polarized positions of the main
project members, and the key USAF people, pretty clearly. Michael
Wertheimer wanted to create UFO-simulation events and then sweep
through the area studying the perceptual, memory, and reporting
accuracies of the population. Another psychologist, Stuart Cook,
supported that. Colonel Hippler said absolutely not. That's
all we need: Inventing fake UFOs to fool people; a public
relations catastrophe for the Air Force. Cook, Condon, and Low
wanted to focus on the observer and the conditions surrounding
the observation (a Menzelian debunking-oriented strategy).
Colonel Ratchford thought that this would be interesting science.
Colonel Hippler said that this was the road to another public
relations catastrophe. Don't emphasize this either. Franklin
Roach preferred to downplay the Wertheimer perceptual concerns
and concentrate on powerful cases (a Hynek-NICAP-type approach).
Condon immediately challenged that as not being able to approach
an ETH decision. Jack Evans of the Sacramento Peak high-altitude
observatory suggested looking at cases involving credible
experienced observers, such as pilots (the other half of the
Hynek-NICAP approach). Hippler thought that might be worth doing.
Evans also suggested trying to bypass the observer problem and
get real time data using large sensor grids. Hippler replied that
lots of grids already exist. Maybe they'd be useful.

David Saunders stayed silent a long time. He then suggested
the "other" psychological approach: mass data (which
de-emphasizes individual idiosyncrasies) and attempts to find
correlations between discrete qualities of the reports. Low
immediately directed this idea at tests of the credibility of the
observations. Saunders said it went way beyond that. Condon
changed the subject to the social problems UFOs were causing the
Air Force and the public. Finally, Colonel Ratchford thought that
concentrating on case categories, which might pay off
scientifically in data on ball lightning or other rare

physical and perceptual phenomena would be a good idea. Condon
was still confused about what they were supposed to do and why.
He still thought studying the observers was a good idea.
Ratchford and Hippler finally said: all we're "asking
you to do is to take a look at the problem" (U'FO
reports, not observer problems), and make a recommendation about
what we (the USAF) should do about it in the future. You may not
solve the problem, but you may be able to decide whether it's
worth going on. Condon ended with: "It is a very puzzling
problem, gentlemen ... We said we would have an answer on this
phase of the work (methodology) ... by the end of January. But it
does not appear that we will make that deadline." On this,
they never made any deadline at all.

RANDOM ACTIVITIES

The Project engaged in many activities and this is no time to
attempt to chronicle them. However, a selection might give the
reader a useful picture of what went on. Early in the game, they
attempted to go to school from a variety of experts. All sorts of
individuals traipsed through Boulder to give them advice:
McDonald, Menzel, Hynek, Vallee, Keyhoe, Hall, as well as science
and technology types who knew little about UFOS. Some
individuals, such as Bob Wood and James Harder, insisted on
audiences whether they were invited or not. Of these visitations
the one everyone was most concerned about involved Keyhoe and
Hall. It seemed to go well to both sides and set up a temporary
cooperative and respectful exchange between the two
organizations. Project members (especially Low) also attempted
education by various trips to areas where experts or other unique
information sources resided. One of these trips created part of
the problem that the project suffered internally. This was
Low's trip to Europe. Such a trip was obviously worth making
considering the presence overseas of two UFOlogical giants, Aime
Michel and Charles Bowen. Because Low decided to combine more
than one type of business, and some pleasure, he chose a time
when neither expert was available. Some of the project team were
outraged by this strategy coupled with a stay at Loch Ness to
compare UFOs with the "monster". Whatever excuses one
might make, there is no escaping that Low blew it on this. A
dedicated research project requires dedicated research trips. If
the two main reasons for going aren't available, you pick
another time. Project members viewed this correctly as a lack of
seriousness on Low's part. Some of the other trips ended up
with "purchases" (subcontracts) from high-priced
think-tanks of technical reports which Condon and Low hoped would
add (literally) weight to the final report.

A major activity demanded by Roach and Saunders was the
collection and analysis of significant old reports. Condon fought
against this consistently but the weight of opinion almost
everywhere else insisted that something at least be done. The
agreed-upon idea was that project members would read piles of
candidate cases, discuss them, and nominate the most interesting
for an inclusion into a Case Book of powerful reports. This Case
Book would turn out to be a large significant thing with many
pages per case. Condon, as an absentee project head, and Low,
wilting under general opinion, could not police this very well.
The procedure was begun but as the project work grew and people
became spread thin, it fell into disuse, which, of course, was
fine with Condon. A few remnants of the idea remain in the
archives at the American Philosophical Library in Philadelphia,
and its "ghost" became Chapter 2 of Section IV of the
report. Many excellent early cases were nominated and folders
prepared, which never made it into the "scientific
study". The only areas where responsible coverage of such
cases exists

in the report are the chapters dedicated specifically to
photographic evidence (William Hartmann) and radar evidence
(Gordon Thayer). Persons such as Saunders, Levine, Roach, Hynek,
McDonald, Keyhoe, and Hall had legitimate reasons to being
displeased with the coverage of important "old" cases,
especially when data was abundantly, easily available (even right
in the office).

Everyone agreed (even Condon) that field studies on new cases
were a good idea despite their problems. So, a procedure was set
up with a UFO hotline with someone available to answer at any
time. Mary Lou Armstrong typically was the first screener, and
Saunders or Low would usually rule on whether it was hot enough
to "go". Certain persons volunteered for field
research, and Roy Craig and Jim Wadsworth were the mainstays.
It's hard to decide exactly how to count these field trips,
but, roughly, the team went on about thirty-eight of them between
August 1966 and the end of 1967. Most of the cases were trivial;
things none of us would have made much of an effort on today.
Still there were a few so-called (by Low) "super cases"
(ex. Michalak; Schirmer). Later critics objected that the project
didn't seem to be getting, or perhaps selecting, quality
cases. At one time even Condon wrote to complain to the USAF
about slow and incomplete reporting from that source. By the end
of the year the Wright Pat project admitted to nineteen unknowns,
most of which either didn't get to Colorado or weren't
deemed important enough to research if they did. And, as a
separate issue regarding current field research on an
"old" case John Fuller had paved the way for a Benjamin
Simon hypnosis of Betty and Barney Hill, if Colorado was
interested. They weren't.

Meanwhile, David Saunders had become somewhat overloaded
pursuing his own favorite idea - the computer catalog database.
Hopes were high that at least five hundred cases would be entered
in time for the project report. Simultaneously, Saunders became
impressed with Aime Michel's concept of Orthotenic lines, as
an indication of intelligent activity in UFO waves. A major
brou-ha-ha ensued over his insistence on the importance of
orthoteny, and its inclusion in the report. Low was, putting it
mildly, unconvinced. An outside statistical expert was brought in
to critique the work. Though the exchange seems to have been
civilized, the bad relations were further frayed. When Saunders
(and Levine) were fired, all this cataloguing and statistics
collapsed. At least, much later, this work emerged as the CUFOS
UFOCAT project.

'GOOFINESS' PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Our last brevity about project activities will come under the
heading of "goofiness". This was the element in UFOlogy
chosen by Edward Condon as his own interest. To put this decision
in the best light, consider Ed Condon as someone who doesn't
want to do this UFO project, is near the end of his science
career and has paid his dues, and might as well have some fun
while he's involved with this chore. There are, of course,
worse lights one could shine on it. Condon considered all this
sort of material under the titles of "Magic" or
"Religion, Cults, Psychological". In several places he
is obviously having a grand time trying to track down malefactors
like "Mel Noel", or strange stones like that of the
Tulli Papyrus or the Allende nonsense of the Philadelphia
Experiment. He shared his enjoyment of the stones of the
congenial lunatic "Dickson/Dicksun of the second and third
universes" with Dr. Urner Liddel, the old anti-UFO warhorse
of the Office of Naval Research. He ordered Jim Wadsworth to the
Bonneville Salt Flats to check out a "psychic
prediction", just in case a UFO really lands. He wrote
to

the governor of Utah to see if he would like to attend. He
created a card system for each "cult", whereupon he
hoped to list its membership, publisher, date of origin,
"channel", and home planet among other pertinencies.
This piece of science never materialized, and consequently did
not make the final report. His most controversial act was his
highly publicized act of attending the "little boys having
fun" Congress of Scientific UFOlogists held in New York in
June of 1967. Despite heavy pleadings and protestations from the
group, he absolutely insisted on watching the fools’
parade. His presence did much to increase publicity to its
damaging (to UFO research) best. And, without saying anything, it
was his clearest statement about what he felt about the
field.

PROJECT RESULTS

The most concrete result was the approximately thousand-page
paperback that most serious UFOlogists have sitting on their
shelves (Gillmor, 1969). To those of us who have opened it, it
has a peculiar structure, almost audibly saying, "don't
try to read me". Paranoia aside, this probably is not
deliberate. Reading the primary documents of the project
indicates very clearly that the organization's chaos and
personnel dislocations that afflicted it made the creation of a
smooth document impossible.

The project deadline ensured that editing and arranging was a
process bordering on the hysterical. When one adds to this a real
deliberate decision to obfuscate the individual cases by not
precisely locating them in time or space (or, of course,
witnesses), it's a miracle that one can get anything out of
reading it at all. The late director of Air Force Intelligence,
Charles Cabell, had characterized the Project Grudge report as
"the most poorly written piece of unscientific tripe
I've ever read". One wonders what he would have said
about this one?

Of course, in a thousand-page book there are bound to be
things worth reading. The main things focused upon here have been
the cases and their identifiability. Many heroic readers (inc.
James McDonald and Peter Sturrock) noticed that a close look at
the report's own results clearly points to an ongoing mystery
in the field, and one with at least the potential for important
discovery (McDonald, 1969; Sturrock, 1974). This has significance
mainly because Dr. Condon said essentially the opposite in his
conclusions. This paper being a historical rather than a data
analysis, this incongruency of internal versus summary
conclusions should be explored by the reader in the document or
in the works of Drs. McDonald, Sturrock, et al.

At the larger level of results, the Air Force used
Condon's conclusion, with thanks, to do what they wanted to
do: they closed Project Bluebook permanently.

The conclusion of the report was stated, briefly, as such:
there has been no advance to science through the study of UFOs in
the past, and there likely will be no advance in the future.
Consequently, the Air Force should give up its official project.
There are, therefore, three main elements to the conclusion:

1. There has been no advance.

2. There almost surely never will be.

3. Project Bluebook should close.

Almost everyone would agree to number one. Most, probably,
would agree to number three. The problem was number two. Were
UFOs worth studying if the study was serious and potent? Condon
said no. Hynek, McDonald and Keyhoe said a loud "yes!"
What did the Colorado Project, as a whole, say? Here is a listing
of the Project members and their opinion, as can be found in
project records or commentaries shortly after the report
materialized.

Edward Condon: no

Robert Low: no

Franklin Roach: yes

David Saunders: yes

Michael Wertheimer: ?, possibly no

Roy Craig: ?, possibly no

Norman Levine: yes

Mary Lou Armstrong: yes

William Hartmann: yes

Frederick Ayer: yes

Dan Culberson: yes

James Wadsworth: yes

Martin Altschuler: ?, possibly no

Gordon Thayer: yes

Gerald Rothberg: yes

Frederick Hooven: yes

My toting up of the "opinion poll" is two
"no's", three undetermineds, and eleven
"yes's". Skeptics may say whatever they wish, this
array of opinions from the people within the project form a stark
contrast to the opinion (and it was an opinion)
"concluded" by Condon.

IMPACTS

Opinion or not, the report had strong impacts. The Air Force,
as noticed, closed Bluebook. This had the desired side effect of
lessening the amount of conversation about flying saucers linked
to the military. Science magazine welcomed the report,
and the bastion of hyper-conservative prejudices,
Nature, even more so (Boffey, 1969; Nature, 1969). But the
overall result in the scientific community was surprisingly
mixed. The mere existence of a university project had brought
UFOlogy out of the closet, and, for the moment legitimatised it.
Many scientists had written to Condon and the project expressing
interest. The report didn't stop this trend. Condon found
himself in a position of trying to talk scientists out of holding
seminars on the subject. The worst came for Condon when the
foursome of Thornton Page, Walter Orr Roberts, Carl Sagan, and
Philip Morrison decided to create an all-day symposium at the
American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.
Reading the manuscript collections on this battle of power and
prejudices (on all sides) is one of the more enlightening
experiences to anyone interested in the non-ideal nature of real
scientists. The AAAS symposium was ultimately held, and was
mainly negative in tone, but it did not put a stop to academic
interest either (Page, Sagan, 1972). Rather, the early to
mid-seventies were a boom time for academic involvement, albeit
mostly behind the scenes rather than, as at AAAS, in the
spotlight. It was the main

era of the so-called "invisible college", and
featured the work of Allen Hynek, Peter Sturrock, Frank
Salisbury, Leo Sprinkle, and James Harder, among many others. In
the popular eye, however, the period from the end of Condon to
the big wave of 1973 was a fade-out era for UFOS. Whether by
cause or coincidence, NICAP began to fail and APRO had a bit of
downturn. On the other hand, the exact time also saw the rise of
another popular power in UFOlogy, the Mutual UFO Network. The
Condon project's immediate effect toward down playing UFO
research, therefore, was restricted to two areas: the contractor
got what it wanted out of the conclusion; and the highest levels
of the science establishment firmed in their stand not to give
monetary support to UFOlogists.

THE ISSUES OF BIAS

The Condon report has been much maligned as a document not
reflecting the views of the project researchers, nor the data
contained therein. Given some reasonable slack for the short time
and money available for the work, this maljudgment is still
justified. The question which arose, blaringly in public, was:
was the project prejudiced from the beginning? People have
argued, vociferously, both ways. To this author the answer is
completely and documentably clear.

The question of bias could be approached in several ways: (a)
Was the contractor biased? Was there a certain answer that it
wanted, or worse, even demanded? (b) Was the contractee (lead
researcher) biased? (c) Was the project administrator biased? and
(d) What did the people who worked on the
project say?

A. Regarding the contractor (the USAF): I believe that only
the most extreme of position-takers would try to argue that the
Air Force had an open mind about what it wanted to see come out
of this grant. The Air Force wanted to get UFOs out of the Air
Force, period. To do this the phenomenon had to be made to appear
trivial, at least in terms of technology and security. Because
the Air Force had the responsibility to ensure safety in the
skies, even as regards long shot possibilities, the phenomenon
probably needed to be trivialized in all respects to rationalize
completely dumping it. Fortunately for the historian, none of
this has to be laid at the door of assumption. The main
information-carriers of both elements in the Air Force critical
to the project tell us so in the existent documents. In a
belligerent interview with Foreign Technology Division chief,
Colonel Raymond Sleeper, Robert Low and Bluebook personnel were
treated to the following exchange:

Sleeper: "Do you know what benefit the Air Force has
derived from the Bluebook study? ... Zero! UFOs exist because
people, faced with an unstructured existence, find the need to
structure it. If you'll just find out about that, you'll
find the key to the UFO problem"

Low: "Why did you give the contract to the University of
Colorado? Do you consider it a waste of money?"

Sleeper: "I do." (Low, 1966)

And, turning to the Pentagon, we have mentioned the briefing
to Ratchford, Hippler et al, earlier. Colonel Hippler was the
contact point between Colorado and the higher-ups. Low had tried
to get him to tell them clearly what the Air Force wanted, during
the briefing. Hippler had dodged. We should remember that this
was a contract initiated by the USAF, not Condon and Low. Condon
and Low were doing this in service to the Air
Force, not for themselves. What the contractor wanted was vital
to be clear upon. Three days after the briefing, upon returning
to the Pentagon, Hippler wrote Condon (Hippler, 1967). He opened
by saying that this was an informal letter and not to be taken as
official Air Force position. Well, anyone is welcome to buy that,
but one would suggest a few visits to a common sense counselor
would be helpful. Low, who responded for Condon, showed that he
was hip to exactly what he was hearing. Hippler had two things to
say. He was unhappy with the Wertheimer Hypothesis, and felt that
Colorado could come to an anti-extraterrestrial
conclusion. Secondly, he emphasized how costly Project Bluebook
had been over the years, and that they'd really like to get
rid of it. If Colorado needed an extension in order to come up
with a "proper recommendation" that would be arranged
(recall that this was January 1967 and the Colorado Project had
just started). Low wrote back thanking him, "You have
answered quite directly the question that I asked." The Air
Force absolutely wanted a recommendation ending Project Bluebook,
preferably tied to some trivializing assessment of UFOS. They
said so night up front, but only to Condon and Low.

B. Regarding the contractee (Condon): Some writers might want
to defend Edward Condon as going into the fray with an open mind,
but coming out with a closed one. The "coming out" with
closed, and highly emotional, statements is certainly clear, and
all over the documentation. "Coming in" takes a little
more assessment. What we know for sure is that Condon took the
project as a patriotic service, and, therefore, knowing what the
Air Force needed, would function accordingly. This is, of course,
prejudice enough, but what did he personally feel? Condon made
several public speaking "boners" which many take to be
spontaneously revelatory of his inner views. Perhaps they were.
Condon was however a witty joker, and these faux pas could have
been just bad judgment. But when all is weighed, I believe that
one must admit a strong negative bias, only held in check by his
knowledge that this was a touchy public relations situation. In
April of 1967, still very early in the project, Condon received a
letter objecting that UFOs are a waste of time. Condon wrote the
following (and wisely did not mail it):

"The study of UFO reports is an elusive thing. I'm
not sure that the government ought to be spending
any money on it ... I did not seek it, and it is not
fun. It was thrust upon me, and is distracting me from another
job which I would rather do."

He goes on to suggest that the writer send the letter
recommending that the government eliminate spending on
"uncatchable, unprovable, unidentifiable unthings" to
Robert McNamara, USAF Secretary Harold Brown, and members of the
House Committee on Armed Services (Condon, 1967). With these
initial attitudes it is no surprise Condon could write a report
summary so much at variance with his staff. One positive nod to
the grand old scientist, however: he knew,
despite it all, that something scientifically interesting might
be in here somewhere. And so, he carefully crafted his language
so as to encourage others to look, but not to encourage funding.
More on this in a moment.

C. Regarding the administrator (Low): Robert Low is a more
difficult figure to comprehend. He was not a scientist, despite
being around science all his working life. He was a savvy
administrator, who knew what was important: the contractor, the
higher administration, the boss. But he often also demonstrated a
refreshing, almost childlike curiosity about these neat things he
was delving into. I believe that this put Low into an awkward
position: doing a "Condon-imitation" trying to police a
project headed toward a fixed conclusion, while being honestly
interested in a lot of it himself. In the end, of course, the
"administrator" and the job won out. In his
administrator's hat Robert Low wrote the infamous
"trick" memo of which so much has been written (Low,
1966A). A great semantic debate has been held over the various
ways the word "trick" can be used, and everyone is
correct. The tale is told, however, by reading the whole memo in
the context of the time. The Air Force has just convinced Condon
to try the project. Bob Low has just been briefed himself as to
his and the university's role. The idea has just been floated
by the high administration and all sorts of objections are
arising. Low, the effective administrator- politician, is
attempting to cast the potential project in a way that will
mollify the objectors. Whether he believes any of what he himself
is saying or not, he describes the project in ways which
emotional, prejudiced people might tolerate. His use of
"trick" and all the surrounding words meant to cast the
project into a "proper light" for these "UFO
negative" people. Of course it ends up
sounding prejudicial against UFOs as serious entities. It
has to. That's the audience he's writing to. The
real question is not the Low memo, it's what Low himself
believed. That we may never know. All we can assess is how he
acted. In that he was the loyal right arm of Edward Condon, as
was his Job. Many of the project staff were unhappy with his
actions and interferences, the strongest statement of which is in
the resignation letter of Mary Lou Armstrong (Armstrong,
1968).

D. Regarding the views of the project team members: Given that
so many of these people disagreed with Condon's concluding
opinions, the fact that they viewed the project to be biased
early on needs little further documentation. Statements abound in
the aforementioned Armstrong letter, the rebutting
Saunders-Harkin book (1968), and letters following the project by
Thayer, Roach, Rothberg, etc, Toting up the score sheet on
evidences of bias, we find strong, usually concretely documented,
signs of prejudice in all four venues. Since 100 percent is
pretty good coverage, it seems that the conclusion that the
Colorado Project had strong early UFO-negative biases is a good
assumption.

There is one other element in this to explore, however. The
USAF could have received what they wanted out of the conclusions
without there being such a strong negative on the UFOs as
potentially scientifically interesting. They were
obviously of potential scientific interest, as people
kept coming up with all sorts of wild physical and psychological
hypotheses to explain them. Colonel Ratchford mentioned about a
half dozen "spinoffs" he considered intriguing if the
project wanted to look into them. But the recommendation was a
much stronger negative in the end. Why?

Edward Condon seemed to be open to the idea of further
academic study of some elements of this subject until about
halfway through the project. Then he changed. What happened? All
sorts of scientists began talking about getting government
funding for UFO research: Allen Hynek, of course;

more surprisingly, Frank Drake, William Hartmann, Frederick
Ayer; and most threateningly, James McDonald. A very powerful red
flag went up in Condon's mind. Red ink. Funding deficits for
other worthier science. 1967 began for the sciences what were to
be called the "doldrum years" of government (non-)
funding. Cutbacks were severe and everywhere. McDonald, with his
characteristic aggression, talked before Congress of a UFO budget
dwarfing that of the space program. Others had chimed in, usually
with a little more restraint, but everyone was talking serious
dollars. Condon knew how many scientists were interested; some,
famous names. He knew that the idea was getting a hearing from
the non-scientist politicians who controlled money. One more flap
and this would become a scientific catastrophe. So Condon did
everything he could do. He pounded the hammer down. UFOs were
nonsense. They did not seem to deserve any research at all. And
they certainly did not deserve to be funded.

FINAL REMARKS

The Colorado Project is a very educational research topic. It
begins back with idealistic naivete (by Hynek), and ends with
pragmatics, economics, and social forces. As the currents of
personalities and powers intersected, it became a conclusion
waiting for a process to present it. And in the end, who won? The
Air Force won. They finally achieved what they needed for twenty
years: the deconstructing of the public link between themselves
and UFOS. And who lost? The search for the Truth; the ideals of
academia and science; and Jim McDonald, to whose death this might
have contributed in part.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the officials and staff of the
American Philosophical Library, the University of Colorado, and
the Center for UFO Studies for access to the relevant materials
from those archives.

Brittin, Wesley; Condon, Edward; and Manning, Thurston (1966).
A proposal to Air Force Office of Scientific Research for
support of Scientific Study Of Unidentified Flying Objects,
Boulder, Colorado, November 1, 1966 (APL and CUFOS files).